David Janes' Code Weblog

Foursquare has revved their API, but there’s no Python Library to support it. Here’s how to use it from Python

1. Get OAuth info from foursquare — the callback URL does not matter _but_ you must record here. https://foursquare.com/oauth/register. Fill in the results into CLIENT_ID, CLIENT_SECRET and CALLBACK_URL
2. Run this, enter the URL in browser, get code as FS_ACCESS_CODE, add back here
3. Run this, fill in FS_ACCESS_TOKEN
4. Run this, you’re authorized: enjoy!

Notes

1. Python OAuth2 from here:  https://github.com/rodbegbie/python-oauth2
2. This is entirely standing on the shoulder’s of Rod Begbie’s work.

Code:

import oauth2
import json
import pprint

OAUTH_BASE = "https://foursquare.com/oauth2/authenticate"

CLIENT_ID = ""
CLIENT_SECRET = ""
CALLBACK_URL = ""

FS_ACCESS_CODE = ""
FS_ACCESS_TOKEN = ""

client = oauth2.Client2(CLIENT_ID, CLIENT_SECRET, OAUTH_BASE)

if not CLIENT_ID:
  print "=== Register your Foursquare data here"
  print "=== Copy back CLIENT_ID, CLIENT_SECRET and CALLBACK_URL here"
  print "https://foursquare.com/oauth/"
elif FS_ACCESS_TOKEN:
  headers, content = client.request("https://api.foursquare.com/v2/users/self", 
   access_token = FS_ACCESS_TOKEN)

  pprint.pprint({
    "headers" : headers,
    "content" : json.loads(content),
  })
elif not FS_ACCESS_CODE:
  print "=== Enter this URL in your browser."
  print "=== Copy the CODE in the URL that results into FS_ACCESS_CODE"
  print client.authorization_url(redirect_uri = CALLBACK_URL, 
    endpoint='authenticate')
else:
  print "=== Here is your Access Token"
  print "=== Copy into FS_ACCESS_TOKEN as start using Foursquare"
  print client.access_token(FS_ACCESS_CODE, redirect_uri= CALLBACK_URL,
    grant_type='authorization_code')["access_token"]